About 20% of approximately 15,000 merchants in the Solveras Payment Solutions portfolio thus far have been notified as part of a program designed to bring them into compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, the Arlington, Va.-based independent sales organization says. The initiative began in late February.
Solveras is working with Trustwave, a Chicago-based payment-security company that has set up a Web site the merchants may use to provide information about their payment card practices. The information will help Trustwave produce an assessment of their PCI-compliance status and advise them on steps to become fully compliant, says Brian Bickel, Solveras vice president of sales.
The two companies announced the program this week.
“We are sending [merchants] notices and enrolling them into the Trustwave [site],” Bickel tells PaymentsSource.
Solveras is sending notices to groups of merchants to ensure each is properly enrolled, Bickel says.
The program has three phases, Bickel says. The first involves notifying the pool of small and midsize merchants about the compliance initiative. The second gives merchants the ability to attest their compliance, and that is followed by the final phase in which Solveras and Trustwave instruct them on ways to stay compliant, he says.
“What we have to stress to merchants is that PCI compliance is not ‘do one time, and it’s done,’” Bickel says. “At any moment we may have to demonstrate compliance in our portfolio.”
Achieving a high compliance rate will give Solveras and its merchants some “comfort level” in knowing their payments systems are secure, he says. “It limits the exposure to fines from Visa and MasterCard for the processor and the merchant,” Bickel says.
Merchants pay between $6 and $10 per month for the service, depending on the complexity of their payment networks, Bickel says.
Solveras’ nearly 30 inside salespeople do not receive commissions when merchants sign up for the program, he says. “We’re trying to pass through the cost,” Bickel says.
PCI compliance among Level 4 merchants–those with less than 1 million annual card or 20,000 annual e-commerce transactions–can be difficult because they often lack the technology or financial resources that larger retailers do.
Trustwave says it is managing “dozens” of Level 4 programs that reach more than 1 million merchants.
